Summer Pasture Dispersed Camping

Absolutely beautiful spot half mile up the gravel (rock) road. This is not a campground so don’t expect any “services” — it is simply dispersed camping off of a National Forest road. We took an 18ft trailer up the road, wouldn’t go much bigger than that as there are limited options for turning around.

2¼ mile trail walk into town in addition to a seemingly unlimited number of trails to explore in the area.

The camping spots here are very nice and mostly flat with lots of campfire pits already set up. The views are beautiful and the trails are well kept.

The bathrooms here are completely trashed which is very unfortunate. Also, be aware that the road that leads to this campsite is not only dirt but also is a little torn up from atvs. Regardless, our SUV made the trip just fine.

This area has been quite crowded as of late due to the COVID closures in the area. Between the over-crowding and heavy rains making many of the areas too muddy to park, I've watched several vehicles have to U-turn it and go elsewhere. If you come here, make sure you have a "Plan B."

Also, make sure you have some type of rodent deterrent plan, as chipmunks and field mice are quite persistent.

Having planned a trip from Houston to Bryce UT, visiting many places in between during June 2019, I simply selected this location to escape the heat. My strategy was to hop across NM and AZ to Utah selecting high elevations to boondock to allow for comfortable sleeping.

We arrived in Alamogordo (4336' elevation) at 4 PM with the air temperature 99 degrees. The elevation change from Alamogordo to Cloudcroft is drastic with grades of 8% for much of the way. About 30 minutes later in Cloudcroft (8668' elevation) the air temperature was 64 degrees.

We stayed in the site that is 0.6 mile in from 224 on the left of FR 568. Several rock fire rings were established there. We backed our rig in to the highest point. The views of the forest were awesome. Hiking was awesome too. We woke the next morning to snow flurries. What a magnificent change of pace!

The site had Quaking Aspen, Pinion, Fir, Sweet Pine, Ponderosa Pine, Oak, Wild Iris, and what looked to be rye grass. Absolutely beautiful ! ! !

The road is solid and will likely not become soft when wet except for a few places. It is somewhat rough. The entrance has a rise that could present trouble for very low rigs. Our 29.5' TT made it fine. There are several sites at the entrance on the right side.

Those not having experience with steep grades should use low gear to limit your brake use when coming down from Cloudcroft to Alamogordo.

There are several spots right off Hwy 244. When we pulled in there were a bunch of RV's/trailers parked on top of each other. We drove down the road a bit (rocky, but suitable for passenger cars) and found a great spot on the left. The road dead ends maybe a 1/2 mile later, where there is another camp spot. The spot where we stayed appeared to be quite popular and had the highest ratio of fire rings:camp spot we've ever seen! There was also a good amount of trash, sadly. We're tent/truck campers, but there is room for a trailer or smaller RV. All in all a great spot.

If you go past the gate at the end of the road, there is a picturesque meadow where we saw a herd of elk. There is also about a 5 mile single track trail that loops back around to the road and is popular with mountain bikers and is a beautiful hike. Off the main road, just before our spot, there is a steep ATV/Jeep road one the left that starts rocky, then gets very rutted and would be slick when wet. If you can make it, there are a couple nice camping spots. That road intersects with another that veers left off the main road (I think it would be the first left), doable in a regular truck and also leading to a couple nice spots. Not too much traffic on the road (a few cars per day), but a busy enough spot that I would suggest avoiding it on holidays and weekends if you like solitude.

As the previous reviewer mentioned Pine Campground about a 1/4 mile away is very nice but $20 per day. As an alternative, this area is a fairly typical dispersed forest road camping area. The road in is rough and rocky and the sites are sloped and/or not level. There aren't very many useable sites and the best ones were occupied by what appeared to be long-term residents. Overall, if you can find an acceptable site it's a nice place to stay.

Acceptable AT&T service is a bonus and Cloudcroft has enough activities to keep you busy.

We found cloudcroft by happy accident after talking to some locals in Tularosa. This area is gorgeous and there is tons of amazing hiking all around. It is also a nice respite from the heat due to its high elevation.

The campgrounds in the area are all really nice with nice level spots and stairs to there adjacent picnic tables all nestled in some large pines that give some privacy- we thought we hit the jackpot- but $20 a night for dry camping seemed a little steep so we figured we try for a dispersed spot.

You only need to go about 1/4 mile down this road to have a choice of a few spots in a gorgeous clearing in the woods- which is where we chose to settle down. There are even more amazing spots farther down the road but the road is a little rough so it’s probably better for car/tent camping than rigs

We were able to hop of trails directly from the site for both hiking and mountain biking

Oo and we had great cell coverage!